Category: Microsoft

My latest book, Easy Windows 8.1, is now available in print and various e-book versions. It offers full-color visual step-by-step instructions for Windows 8.1’s new and improved features (travel, search, digital photo shooting and editing, and more) along with instructions designed for both touchscreen and mouse/keyboard users. Grab a free sample chapter at the Que Publishing website, where you can also buy a print copy or watermarked PDF , ePUB, or MOBI versions.

Print and Kindle versions are also available at Amazon.com (and Amazon.com is offering a sweet $5.00 coupon off the print version right now!). Print and Nook versions are available at Barnes & Noble.

If you need to run non-3D Windows XP applications and don’t want to worry about tinkering with them for Windows 7, take a close look at XP Mode.

Even if you think you know what XP Mode can do for you and how it works, be sure to check it out. It cuts through the misinformation and helps you deal with some of the trickier features of this new virtualization environment.

My “how-to” article on how to use the cool new vLite utility to create a lean, mean, customized, full-auto-install Vista SP1 installation can be found in the May 2008Â issue of Maximum PC, now on newsstands. Enjoy!

Get a taste of what vLite can do from my original blog posting, which inspired the article.

Answer: they’re three of the most obscure products developed by a certain West Coast technology company:

Mach 10 was a processor board upgrade for the IBM PC

Booster was a mouse, clock, and memory upgrade for the IBMÂ PCjr

Bob was a short-lived friendly front-end for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95

And that company was Microsoft (or, as in early ads, MicroSoft). With Microsoft founder Bill Gates riding off into the sunset this week after his final keynote address at CES, I figured it was time to rediscover some of Microsoft’s strangest products ever. Have other nominees? Let us know.